Dead or Alive

, abbreviated as DOA (Dii ō ei), is a 1999 Japanese yakuza action film directed by Takashi Miike. It stars Riki Takeuchi as the gang boss and former yakuza Ryūichi and Show Aikawa as the Japanese cop Detective Jojima and focuses on their meeting and conflict. It is the first in a loosely-connected three-part series, followed by Dead or Alive 2: Birds in 2000 and Dead or Alive: Final in 2002. Synopsis Ryūichi (Riki Takeuchi) is the leader of a small gang of nikkei gangsters operating in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo, made up of his childhood friends, Satake (Hitoshi Ozawa), Mariko (Mizuho Koga), Hoshiyama (Ryuushi Muzkami) and Hitoshi (Kyousuke Yabe). They pull off a daring, broad daylight robbery of a truck carrying money out of a business run by Aoki (Renji Ishibashi), a local yakuza boss who is in the middle of negotiating a territory deal with a triad gang led by Mr. Chen (Shingo Tsurumi). Humiliated by the public loss of money at the hands of petty crooks, Aoki turns to Detective Jojima (Show Aikawa) of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, instructing him to find the culprits of the robbery and turn them over to him. Jojima is heavily in debt to Aoki, since he and his wife (Kaoru Sugita) borrowed money to pay for a surgery that his daughter required to save her life. Ryūichi and his cohorts pick up his younger brother, Toji (Michisuke Kashiwaya), from the airport. Toji had been studying in the United States and has temporarily returned home while on Spring Break. The gang parties to celebrate Toji's return but the mood is soured when Toji learns that Ryūichi has been paying for his studies by committing robberies for the yakuza. The mood is further soured when Ryūichi discovers that gang member Hitoshi has betrayed them and stolen a large part of the money from the heist. The gang tracks down Hitoshi to his mother's house and, despite Toji's pleas, Hitoshi is executed. After the murder, Toji doesn't want to see Ryūichi ever again. Detective Jojima and his partner, Detective Inoue (Susumu Terajima), start investigating the robbery and discover leads that point to Ryūichi and his crew. They travel to Ryūichi's home town and find information on each of the gang's members. They also discover about Hitoshi's death. They bring Ryūichi in for questioning and try to talk him into confessing and going to prison, since he'll otherwise have to go up against the yakuza. Despite the threat, Ryūichi refuses to confess.